Abstract

An embedded solid-phaseepitaxy technique has been studied to produce very small-size and high-density nanocrystal (NC) assemblies on a Si (100) substrate. In this procedure, a bionanoprocess is utilized, with protein “ferritin” containing cores, for solid-phaseepitaxialgrowth (at ) embedded in an amorphous Si thin film.X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy revealed NCs of uniform diameter and high density . By measuring the photoluminescence spectra at , a photoluminescence peak of is obtained as an excitonic emission from the NCs.

Received 02 October 2007Accepted 26 October 2007Published online 12 November 2007

Acknowledgments:

The authors thank Ichiro Yamashita and Shigeo Yoshii (Matsushita Electric Industrial) for useful advice regarding the bionanoprocess. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (18360010) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.